Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Forum STOLEN STEINWAY GRANDS

Unfortunately I must consider these two Steinway Grands Stolen.

One is a Style III Serial number 34401
The second is a Style II Serial number missing right now.

These pianos have been missing for 18 months now.

These pianos were taken from me by
Kevin Olberholtzer
262 321 8632

These pianos need to be returned.
Mr. Oberholtzer does not return calls.

If anyone has information that is helpful, please PM me.

Larry Buck

Call the police.

Larry, I'm not sure whether to take your thread seriously or as a joke. There have been a few posts made in jest lately, that did not seem so at first glance.

If you consider these two pianos stolen from you by this individual, I agree with Piano90X; call the police/sheriffs department and file a criminal complaint against the individual.

However, after all this time, (18 months?) this would most likely be considered a civil action instead of a criminal action.

Good luck.

Rick

How did you manage to hand over 2 Steinways without payment in advance?

And yeah, take legal action. You aren't going to get them back via Pianoworld.

I have spoken to the police.

I need to know where this guy is.

The "bad" check has a music store address on it. Not actually his address. I have spoken to the music store, I believe they are not a part of this.

Someone said he is living out of his truck. A registration state/number would be helpful. Home address if has one.

He was recommended to me by someone I trust. Therefore I trusted him. Tough lesson.

This is real. I am serious. I need a little more information before the police can be effective. Regardless of civil/criminal, I need more information. I am hoping someone on PW will contact me privately.

It's not a bad idea to post a hot list of makes models and serial numbers. Like those Amber Alerts, it's extremely unlikely that the vast majority of us will see anything, but it's worth doing for those few cases in which it leads to a recovery.

You should hire a private investigator to track this guy down. That's what I would do at this point.

I would recommend you call a few well-known criminal defense law firms in your area and ask them who they use. The good ones have a police background.

It would be worth throwing $500 to $1,000 at an investigator if you can manage to get your pianos back.

Piano99

I appreciate that thought. Using all resources I can think of.

Is this the guy?

Well, Googling his name could help...

I wrote a song entitled "Google my name, if you want to know who I am". Thing is, when I Googled my name, I had no idea there were so many other people with the same name. I thought I was unique and one of kind... Okay, I'm that for sure, but lots of people have the same first and last name as I do.

Good job, Plowboy!

Rick

P.S. By-the-way, where I'm from, writing a bad check is a crime; it's called deposit account fraud. If it's over $500 it's a felony charge.

Of course, you've got to find the guy first, for sure.

Kevin Oberholtzer buys and sells pianos for a living.

He also sells the padded bags that piano movers put grand legs and the lyre in.

I am guessing he is in his 50's now.

Yes Rick, "Larceny by Check". You may be right on the amount. At some point it is a Felony.

Been through something similar, but luckily the person didn't get my piano. He was supposed to do a lot of work on its restoration.
He did take my money, but has already spent it. It is a tough lesson to learn as I too trusted the man who recommended him.

I hope you can get your two pianos back! Will be sending good thoughts your way. Certainly with those Serial numbers they can be traced and the police can track him down. Good luck. Keep us posted.

Reading between the lines in some of your other posts, it sounded like you'd experienced trouble of some sort. If you ever care to share the details, it'd serve as a PSA for others. The OP too. Sadly, scammers abound it seems.

Larry,

I do not know him, but will keep this in mind. If I hear anything about where he is i will call you.

So sorry about this. I did have a similar experience with subcontracting ivory key replacement. I di not know the person in question did this work. He had a reputation so I sent him a set of keys. He was having a substance abuse problem (that I knew nothing about) and had my payment, my customer's keys, and would not return either to me.

I won't mention his name because he seems much better now and is active in the business. But I am not sending him any more keys.

I hope you get your money or pianos back.

Many years ago when printers were expensive we had a guy (supposedly a certified technician) come around to fix a bunch of printers where I work. He poked around for a while and told us he could get the work done faster if he "took them back to his shop." So we helped him load up his car with our broken printers. Never heard from him again.

I read a story a long time ago about a few guys dressed as movers showing up at the Montreal Eaton's department store piano section (on the 5th floor) and explained that the customer for a particular grand piano (it had a "sold" sign on it) had sent them to pick it up because he needed it immediately. Without further question they let them take it... Stolen.

Similar story about a pianist who was out on tour, the manager of his apartment building in NYC let the "movers" in....

The previous owners of our house left a huge, heavy timber swing set. Our girls used it a couple of times, but were really too big for it. I offered it to a friend who has seven kids, and initially he wanted it, but after coming over and contemplating disassembling, moving and reassembling it--even with my help--he declined. Frankly, I was kind of glad he said, "no." The thing was massive, and I didn't want to take it apart either, so I figured the best way to get rid of it was to sell it on eBay, so I listed it.

The scam calls started to pour in, but the worst guy was going to buy it sight unseen, for full price, to ship to his "son in Alaska," and would send me a check, etc, and that he'd have it picked up right away. The crazy thing was that "shippers" actually came to my house to "pick it up." I'd given the guy my address, because he wanted "to look at it," but then replied that he wouldn't have time and that he'd just buy it because he thought he could "trust me" (imagine that).

Deja vu... I already posted about this!

I posted this one before, but it bears repeating.

Some guys showed up to a university with an official looking work order (with the worlds most famous piano brand logos on it) to take the action from one of their grands for rebuilding. You can guess what happens next.

Good grief, this thread is gonna make me paranoid!

You'd never think something as big as a piano could be stolen, so I guess it's good to be a little suspicious, unfortunately!